CUMBERLAND, Md. — Chesapeake & Ohio 2-6-6-2 No. 1309 is poised for reassembly after spending the 2024 season sidelined for planned maintenance work, Western Maryland Scenic Railroad officials say. The Mallet has undergone a laundry list of in-house projects and subcontracted work aimed at positioning the locomotive for long-term operation.
The tourist railroad tapped D&G Machine Products of Maine to manage the locomotive’s piston work, while in-house at the railroad’s Ridgeley, W.Va., shops, officials are adjusting the locomotive’s running gear, boring the cylinders, and installing a new brick arch in the firebox.
“We are on the home stretch with the cylinder project,” says shop foreman Dan Ferden. “The cylinders are bored out. We are just waiting for the last few parts and pieces to come back from Maine, and the new piston rings to arrive from New York. We have changed out several stay bolts in the boiler this year as well and we did an entirely new brick arch in the firebox,”
Ferden says they’ve taken apart the crosshead guides on the rear locomotive, performed re-shimming and re-tramming work, and now they are moving toward a pre-assembly phase.
“There’s been a tremendous amount of problem-solving and custom one-off, two-off parts, pieces and tools that have had to be made to get [No. 1309] to the point where it is now,” says Ferden.
No. 1309’s maintenance work has been on the railroad’s periphery since it first entered revenue service in December 2021. Officials knew that the 2-6-6-2 would require further restorative efforts to sustain long-term reliable operation beyond the 2022-2023 seasons, but the timing was moved forward based on operations in December 2023 [see “Western Maryland Scenic begins fundraising …,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 9, 2024]. Work on the 2-6-6-2, which accompanied other maintenance projects involving the railroad’s growing diesel locomotive and passenger fleet, has made notable progress since last summer.
Ferden says once the locomotive is put back together, the railroad will perform easy break-in test runs, possibly as soon as this spring, but a firm date on when the locomotive will return to service was not disclosed.
He also alluded to progress on former Lake Superior & Ishpeming 2-8-0 No. 34, more recently known as Western Maryland No. 734. The locomotive is in line for a full rebuild from the railhead to the smoke stack and Ferden says the railroad is beginning to look over the locomotive inside the shop, prefacing that its return to steam is still years away.
Ferden likens the maintenance and rehabilitation work to the moving mountains metaphor, noting that these types of preservation projects are complex and require a great deal of teamwork.
“Our trains move mountains,” he says.
